The present invention relates, in general, to dispersal media and, in particular, to a mixture for cleaning of oil spills and the like and extinguishing petroleum fires.
Oil spills have been and continue to be a serious problem. They result from collisions and groundings of tankers and inadvertent discharges from off-shore wells. The frequency of oil spills has increased in recent years because of the increased movement of oil around the world to meet greater needs of industrial and individual consumers. In addition, as the demand for oil grows, more and more off-shore wells are being dug as new sources of oil and to reduce the dependence upon those nations known as oil producers.
Among the detrimental consequences of oil spills are their effects on ecology and commerce. They destroy fish life, fowl and shore lines and they inhibit the movement of ships on the waterways where the spills have occurred. In addition, the risk is great that a fire may develop when oil is spilled.
At the present time, a number of approaches are taken to clean up oil spills. One general category involves trying to capture the spill with some form of a physical barrier (e.g. portable booms) to prevent the spill from spreading and to vacuum clean or skim the oil off the water surface. Such an operation is very difficult, expensive and time consuming. Moreover, bad weather adversely affects such attempts at oil spill clean-up operations.
Another approach for cleaning up oil spills involves chemical treatment of the spill to disolve or disperse the oil or in some other way eliminate the oil with a mixture that has no adverse ecological effects. Such treatment, if effective, is highly desirable in that it may be accomplished quickly. It has been found, however, that the chemical treatments in use today suffer from one or two serious drawbacks. They tend to be poisonous and/or create adverse ecological effects, or to require some additional cleaning step, such as skimming or vacuum cleaning, to complete the removal of the spilled oil.
The hazard of petroleum fires is present in a number of situations other than an oil spill. For example, oil gushing from an oil well may become ignited and cause a fire which is extremely difficult to extinguish because the supply of fuel for the fire, namely the oil, is virtually endless. Also, oil storage depots are potentially dangerous because of the large supply of oil stored in the tanks.
Various approaches have been taken in the past to fight petroleum fires. Some involve particular techniques (e.g. explosives set off atop an oil well fire), while others involve the selection of fire-fighting mediums (e.g. foam). Regardless of the approach, the solution to fighting petroleum fires should satisfy the concurrent requirements of effectiveness, ease of application, speed, safety and reasonable cost.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved dispersal medium for cleaning of oil spills.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved chemical mixture which eliminates oil spills by dispersal of the oil and does not require the additional step of physically removing the oil from the water surface.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a dispersal medium for cleaning of oil spills which is highly effective, easy to apply, reasonable in cost and not handicapped by adbverse ecological effects.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a dispersal medium which is effective in extinguishing petroleum fires.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a petroleum fire fighting medium which extinguishes fires quickly, exposes the fire-fighter to limited hazard and is reasonable in cost.